Opera 10 beta for Unix changelog

Release notes

Release date: June 3, 2009

This is a beta version of Opera. Please use it only on properly backed up computers.

New and improved features

Auto update (New)

Opera now includes the ability to update itself automatically when new releases become available. By default, Opera will
notify the user about available updates. Users can specify that snapshot build releases of Opera should be downloaded by
enabling "Download All Snapshots" in opera:config. Users can also choose not to check for updates
or to automatically install updates by going to Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Security and changing
the "Opera update level" (select box) to the: "Automatically install updates" setting.

Crashlogging tool (New)

An integrated user interface for built-in crash reporting has been added to Opera. This feature automatically appears when
Opera has suffered a crash and enables a user to easily report the event directly back to Opera.

Inline spell checker (New)

Spelling errors are now indicated as you type via a dotted red underline in all places where
you can input text: form fields, Opera Mail compose windows, Notes, Chat, etc. Only single-line text fields do not check
spelling automatically. The spelling checker can be enabled/disabled from the context menu (right-click a text field to
open this menu). The context menu also includes spelling suggestions, the ability to change dictionary languages, and the
ability to select additional dictionaries for automatic download and installation. Opera uses the Hunspell dictionary format,
and a US English dictionary is included by default.

Opera Dragonfly (Improved)

Additions to Opera Dragonfly developer tools include HTTP header inspection, DOM editing, and automatic selection of the
current tab; see this Opera reference.

Opera Mail

Rich Text Message Composition — HTML authoring (New)

Rich text composition can be enabled by default for an account on the Outgoing tab of the account settings dialog by checking
"Prefer HTML formatting". It can also be enabled on a per message basis in the message composition window.

Bold styling, italic styling, and underline styling can respectively be toggled using Ctrl-B, Ctrl-I,
and Ctrl-U.

Delete After X Days — POP-only (New)

Delete after X days automatically removes messages from POP servers after the specified number of days, which is particularly
useful for users who have limited server space. This option can be enabled for POP accounts on the Incoming tab of the account
settings dialog by checking "Remove from server after #days" (7 days by default). It is also possible to specify that only
read messages and/or only fully downloaded messages should be removed. Warning: Disabling the
latter option is dangerous for those that use low-bandwidth mode, as messages that are not completely downloaded will be
removed from the server, making it impossible to retrieve the complete message.

Opera Presto 2.2 rendering engine (Improved)

The Opera Presto rendering engine has been updated to version 2.2 further enhancing its reputation for stability and security.
It is identified within the user agent string of Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en) Presto/2.2.15 Version/10.00,
which is located in the main Toolbar under Help > About Opera; see this Opera
reference.

Opera Turbo (New)

This new Opera feature increases your internet bandwidth speed on slow connections using data and image compression technologies.
Opera Turbo uses Opera proxy servers to compress the traffic before it reaches the Opera browser on the client’s computer;
see this Opera reference. Opera Turbo can easily be configured to suit
your browsing needs:

Right click the Opera Turbo icon located on the left side of the Status Bar.

In the context menu, select "Configure Opera Turbo" to open the Opera Turbo Settings dialog box.

The following choices can now be made:

Automatic (radio button): Turbo will enable only if it detects a slow network

On (radio button): Optimize pages with Turbo so they load faster on slow networks

Text Shadow has a new parameter. This was added to reproduce the etched text effect that is standard on OS X® and many
Windows® applications.

Horizontal and vertical splitters can now be skinned.

Speed Dial configuration options (New)

You can now easily configure how many speed dials will fit comfortably on your Opera desktop. Click "Configure Speed Dial"
in the lower-right corner of the Speed Dial page to open the configuration dialog box. Three tools are available:

Background image

Browse to an image you wish to use as the background of your Speed Dial page.

Position this image on the Speed Dial page by selecting center, stretch, or tile.

Layout of your speed dials

Select which dial layout best suits your monitor size:

Small (2 x 2): renders a 4 speed dial grid

Normal (3 x 3): renders a 9 speed dial grid

Wide screen (4 x 3): renders a 12 speed dial grid

Large screen (4 x 4): renders a 16 speed dial grid

Large wide screen (5 x 4): renders a 20 speed dial grid

Extra large screen (5 x 5): renders a 25 speed dial grid

Hide Speed Dial

Unchecked by default, check this box to hide all speed dials.

Enhanced tabs (New)

The Tab Bar can now be used to show all open tabs as thumbnails.

Open the Tab Bar in the Opera user interface:

In the main Opera Tool Bar, navigate to View > Toolbars > Tab Bar.

Click the Tab Bar check box. This opens the Tab Bar in the Opera user interface.

In the Tab Bar, middle-click or double-click the drag bar [...] to fully expand or collapse all open tabs into thumbnails,
or

Grab the lower border of the Tab Bar or grab the drag bar and:

move it down to expand all open tabs into thumbnails;

move it up to collapse all open thumbnails back into tabs;

slowly expand and collapse the Tab Bar to adjust the tab thumbnails to a size of your choice.

Functional note: The Tab Bar select box is set to "No wrapping" by default (right-click the Tab
Bar, in the context menu click "Appearance", "Wrapping" is set to the "No Wrapping" selection). If you change this selection
to "Wrap to multiple lines", Tab Bar thumbnails will not function.

Pretty-printing of unstyled XML (New)

Opera incorporates "pretty-print XML", which is now the default styling for unstyled XML and uses the unstyledxml.css style
sheet in the Styles sub-directory of the Opera installation directory.

Regular expression engine (Improved)

Opera 10 Beta 1 has an improved and faster regular expression engine that uses a stack-based bytecode instruction set. This
type of instruction set is based around a stack of values, where most instructions "pop" input operands from the value stack,
process them, and "push" the result back onto the value stack. Some instructions simply push values onto the value stack,
and others rearrange the values on the stack. This results in compact bytecode programs with code that is easily generated.
It is a typical backtracking regular expression engine, but does some tricks to avoid redundant backtracking. These usually
avoid the severe performance issues a backtracking regular expression engine can have on specific regular expressions.

Web specifications support

Acid3 test

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

Support for the CSS3 color:transparent value has been improved.

Full RGBA and HSLA opacity support is now included for an easier way to make Web page features transparent. This is accomplished
by the addition of a fourth argument to HSL and RGB, namely alpha transparency and results in RGBA and HSLA values. See
this Opera reference.

Support has been added for the CSS Selectors API. This feature makes the selection of DOM elements a lot simpler. It includes
partial support for namespace resolver features which allow you to work with mixed namespace documents and select elements
based on their namespace; see this Opera reference.

CSS files must now be served with the correct MIME type ("text/css") in Strict mode, or they will be ignored.

HTML 5 support

HTML 5 algorithms have been implemented for detecting charsets in HTML.

HTML 5 <canvas> transforms are applied when building a path, not when painting it.

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)

FPS (Frames Per Second) support: Opera enables you to manipulate the speed (frames per second) of your
SVG animations using JavaScript by supporting the SVGElement.currentFps and SVGElement.targetFps
properties. These properties respectively read and control SVG frames per second; see this
Opera reference.

SVG fonts in HTML support: Use SVG font files to style your text using CSS (in both HTML and SVG files);
see this Opera reference.